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Our Impact

Over the past two years, our 55 members have invested greatly in coalition building and knowledge creation, to raise the profile of transport in country and global debates. We have also raised the visibility of the SuM4All agenda with decision makers, and are now in a position to engage them in a different conversation about transport and mobility. These achievements have been possible because of our investment in building trust among the SuM4All members.

1. Transforming the conversation on transport and mobility

Supporting a Paradigm Shift In Mobility

Within two years, the 55 member organizations have agreed on a common vision for sustainable mobility focused on the pursuit of four concurrent policy goals: universal access, efficiency, safety, and green mobility. This goal-centric, systemwide approach represents a significant departure from the traditional view on transport, which was based on the pursuit of one policy goal at a time. We believe achieving sustainable mobility requires more than the sum of individual policy agendas.

Practically, this paradigm shift has been integrated into the investment programs of several organizations. For example, the International Finance Corporation, the Islamic Development Bank, Agence Française de Développement, and the European Commission have already adopted this vision in their new transport strategy and investment programs.

Shifting the Emphasis from Road to Multimodality

Multimodality is central to delivering sustainable mobility; however, the focus on mobility has often been car-centric. With representatives from all modes of transportation in its membership, SuM4All has strived to broaden the discussion on mobility beyond roads and facilitated the conversation across modes.

Providing Tools to Diagnose Mobility Issues

With this new framework in place, the next logical step was to measure and benchmark country performance against the four goals. The Global Mobility Report 2017 (GMR) did exactly that. Looking at data from 180 developed and developing countries, the GMR made it clear that, although the situations of countries vary widely, none of them has achieved sustainable mobility thus far. The GMR generated more than 3.1 million potential impressions on Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn combined. It was also featured in 40+ news outlets, including Reuters, the Huffington Post, and the New York Post.

Proposing a Tailored, Action-Oriented Approach to Mobility

Building on the findings of the report, we can also cluster countries based on how close they are to each of the four goals, and develop policy packages for each cluster. The Global Roadmap of Action toward Sustainable Mobility (GRA) specifies the roles of key actors: national and local policymakers, development partners, and the private sector. It is the first-ever transport-sector attempt to: (i) provide structured guidance for achieving the four goals simultaneously; (ii) look at both the policy measures and private-sector actions required; and (iii) tailor a package of actions to each country’s performance.

2. Raising the visibility and profile of transport and mobility

SuM4All has added its voice to a growing network of high-profile organizations—including the International Transport Forum (ITF), the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and the World Economic Forum—to raise the profile of transport as a sector with solutions to many global issues, including climate change, the energy transition to low carbon and social stability. For example:

(i) SuM4All has participated in high-level events, including the UN High-Level Political Forum, the ITF Annual Summits, the China World Transport Convention, the UNECE Inland Transport Committee, the World Bank Group Annual Meetings, and the World Economic Forum meetings.

(ii) SuM4All has also been influencing the conversation via other media. Its monthly newsletter reaches 4,000 subscribers, and more than 30,000 users visited the SuM4All website since October 2017. More than 30 blogs and news articles have been published on transport and the initiative.

Similarly, at the country level, SuM4All has collaborated with others to reposition transport at the core of the country development process. For example, we have worked with two pilot countries to test the diagnostic and action tools, and are using the SuM4All platform to reach beyond the transport community.